While the group has no official status, they did suggest a support some amendments:
Amendment #1. Replace lines 220-21 with: "Look for opportunities to invest the congregation's money in socially responsible investment vehicles." (0 opposed).
Amendment #2. At line 206, replace "Assess" with "Examine." (1 opposed).
Amendment #3. At line 227, after "housing" replace the comma with a semi-colon and insert the word "opposing". (0 opposed)
Amendment #4. Insert a new bullet point between lines 214 and 215: "Ensure equitable compensation and respectful treatment of all consultants, contractors, and sub-contractors working for the congregation." (0 opposed)
Also proposed, but not supported: Delete the section consisting of lines 164-202. (1 in favor, 13 opposed).
See the Statement of Conscience, "Escalating Economic Inequity" HERE. (This version does not reflect the supported amendments.)
Further amendments still to be considered are posted as comments to the post HERE. You can also add a comment to this post to propose an amendment.
I love democracy! When UUs engage together in deliberative process, it's about the most fun I ever have in public. I get passionate about it -- and sometimes maybe I seem a little cranky, but that's part of the rough and tumble of hashing out issues with minds that are different from mine and therefore expand mine. Make no mistake: I'm having a great time! There is a kind of community that comes into existence when we meet in the space of democratic process -- ready to share our thinking, ready to be persuaded to change that thinking, and ready to yield lovingly to the majority even when we remain unpersuaded. Democracy IS community, and in that wondrous space all our differences are accepted even as our common cause is constructed. It's truly beautiful.
Be a part of the next deliberative meeting coming up soon to consider further proposed amendments. Stay tuned!
Keep up the good work!
Meredith
Check These Out!
- The Common Reads for 2017-18 (yes, there are TWO): HERE
- On the Journey: the January issue explores Resilience. Pick up a copy at CUUC, or view it HERE.
The TCC takes me to a coffee shop (almost) every Tuesday from 3-5pm -- for anyone who might find that a convenient way to get together with their minister.
- Jan 30: The Cafe inside the Barnes and Noble at Vernon Hills Shopping Center, 680 White Plains Rd, Eastchester
- Feb 6, 13, 20, 27: The TCC comes to Irvington! Black Cat Cafe, 45 W. Main St., Irvington.
Sewing/Needlework. In the three years of disruptive predicaments, I made eight pieced jackets. Always as I stitched, I had an intuitive feeling that, though chaos exists, it need not define my life. Outside the sewing room, the twitching and fretting subsided. Any creative activity, practiced with intentionality and without concern for outcome or gain, evokes the spirit. Whether it be poetry, handcrafts, or music-making, there is a creative activity that speaks to every soul and has the power to heal and strengthen. READ MORE
Make Sense. If practice does you good, then wouldn't practice make you more good -- i.e., better -- than people who don't practice? Unless maybe those others just naturally have the virtues that we who practice are trying to acquire? That must be it. We're the remedial class, trying to catch up with those others who are perfectly beautiful and wonderful without having to practice. Even so, those others occasionally need some inspiration. How can we help provide them with some? Just try to be a sensible turkey.
Case
One evening Raven took her perch on the Assembly Oak and said, "I worked with Jackrabbit Roshi for a long time, and there were certain things in his teaching that troubled me. I never asked about them, and finally I just came to the end and left. I think now that if I had spoken up sooner, it might have helped us both. So now I would ask you, is there anything in our program that troubles you?"Verse
There was a long silence. Finally Turkey, a visitor that evening, spoke up. "I've been wondering," she said, "why it is that you don't have more songbirds in your community."
Raven said, "Maybe they're content just to inspire us from the trees."
Turkey asked, "How can they be inspired?"
Raven said, "Make sense."
Theirs to sing, flash color, beyond all sense.
Ours to plod, grind,
Justify our margins, rationalize our punctuation.
Yes, these too are pretty gifts, and we give them
As the finch gives hers.
Even so.
Is not this specialization an affront
To both song and reason?
Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon
Previous Moment of Zen Saturday Zen Practice at CUUC: HERE
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